An update from Dr. Michael Capps on the Epic Games Website explains how Epic Games is stepping up to the aide of Big Huge Games, the developer of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning that was closed by the recent demise of 38 Studios. The post outlines plans to launch a new studio in Baltimore centered around the former BHG staff, and in the meantime Epic is bringing in some of them to do contract work. Here's a bit:

It’ll take a while to find space, set up desks and PCs, purchase sufficient Nerf weaponry and Dr. Pepper, etc. But some of these folks have been going too long without a paycheck to wait for that. So, as soon as we can, we’re going to try to get people working down here at Epic headquarters in Cary, NC as contractors.

There’s a million things to work out. How many of the team can we hire? What will it be called? What will they be working on? We don’t know all the answers yet. Please give us some time to figure it out; we hope to have more to share soon.

The way we see it, there’s been a big storm in Baltimore, and we’re taking in a few of the refugees — as are the awesome folks at Zynga East, Zenimax Online, and other southeastern studios. Epic’s in a situation where we can do this, and it very clearly fits with our company values, so we’re going to give it a whirl.

The painful truth I see here is that a studio (sustainability debates aside) was let down by a backer at the last second.Nobody here has a ledger with Curt's plans or long term goals, and it's not the first business I've seen fold because a bank/financial backer decided to pull out at the last second.Given the bailout fiasco, I can't understand why this had to happen.It's a shame really. Any sort of creative industry is going to help with culture, standard of living, etc. Choking that life out of your community is just bad business no matter what.

I do agree that Curt obviously hadn't planned well enough. As I've said in the past, little games bring little streams that form into your base income. Once that sustainability is established, then you're free to create anything you want (within reason).

Regardless, I feel it's a shame a company headed by such a passionate guy folded.

RollinThundr wrote on Jun 6, 2012, 10:34:Saying entitlements is a red hering? Do you pay attention to the world around you? How lazy people are these days? Or do you live in the same fantasy world Oblamer does that if the rich just paid a little more automagically the amount of debt we add daily would just go away?

It's a red herring when you equate a ghetto princess who keeps popping out babies for a bigger welfare check with someone who reaches retirement age and wants to start collecting from a system they spent their life paying into. By using the word 'entitlements', that's exactly what your doing, whether you realize it or not.

To be honest I feel the same about SS, want retirement money? Save and invest, buy CD's with a decent return rate, rentable real estate etc. Hell I'm 36 now, I'm sure there won't even be SS by the time I'm 67 and I doubt any of that money I've paid into it, I'll ever see.

The bottom line is government can't ever do something better than an individual can do themselves. That's pretty much undisputable fact

RollinThundr wrote on Jun 6, 2012, 10:34:Saying entitlements is a red hering? Do you pay attention to the world around you? How lazy people are these days? Or do you live in the same fantasy world Oblamer does that if the rich just paid a little more automagically the amount of debt we add daily would just go away?

It's a red herring when you equate a ghetto princess who keeps popping out babies for a bigger welfare check with someone who reaches retirement age and wants to start collecting from a system they spent their life paying into. By using the word 'entitlements', that's exactly what your doing, whether you realize it or not.

RollinThundr wrote on Jun 6, 2012, 09:11:I mentioned fixing tax loopholes so that big business doesn't get quite as many breaks to keep jobs in the US. But in the same token we cannot continue to spend like we are, it's not substaniable, period.

What does this even mean?You want to eliminate tax loopholes so that big corporations don't have an incentive to keep jobs in the US?

What?!

And he said NOTHING about the government creating jobs. Where did your response to him even come from?! He said that Trickle Down Economics has proven false and rewarding the rich has only resulted in the rich becoming a much more powerful and much smaller group while the poor becomes a much less powerful much larger group and the "middle class" has become a much less powerful much smaller group.

You responded to NONE of this.

Jesus. Jesus Jesus Jesus. As he said, the rich are paying the lowest taxes in 100 years (from the end of WW2 to the end of the 70s, likely our strongest years, the top tax bracket varied from 70%-90%!) Since it's been cut we've gone from the top 1% having 20% of the wealth to having 40% of the wealth.

How the fuck do you think this is "substainable" [sic]? Hell, I'll probably be in that 1% before this decade is over and I still see that a) my income is growing much slower as a result of top wealth-catering decisions and 2) our economy cannot grow when the income of only so few actually grows.

There's a difference between incentives and flat out broken tax code. Our tax code in some respects is flat out broken.

Once again, for about the 10th time, the pie is not this set finite thing. Oh noes the rich people are stealing Beamer's chunk quick redistribute their wealth to Beamer stat!

Sorry man but you really do sound like a whiny entitled liberal.

I've said a few times, I don't have an issue with raising taxes, as they are indeed lower than ever. The problem is, you tax people more, the government, (repubs and dems) are just going to spend that much more.

You need to do both, Cut all the waste and bloat, and have a modest increase.

Amazes me how adverse you are about cutting government spending yet up in arms that the rich are stealing your piece of the American dream, the whole inaction on cutting spending over the last 30-40 years sure hasn't helped us in the mess we're currently in. Trust me Beamer, there's plenty of people on welfare, that can NOT wait to get that monthly free guvment check to spend. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Saying entitlements is a red hering? Do you pay attention to the world around you? How lazy people are these days? Or do you live in the same fantasy world Oblamer does that if the rich just paid a little more automagically the amount of debt we add daily would just go away?

Hell lets become socialists like Greece, and where France is headed then we can truly go all out on the path foward to bankruptcy. Hooray!

And before some idiot comes in and calls me a "bleeding heart liberal" (because, somehow, most people are so stupid that they see politics like sports or pc vs. console and think it's a goddamn us vs. them and that they need to pick sides), I'm not.

In fact, I don't give a shit about anyone other than myself.But it's pretty goddamn clear that our tax policy since Reagan has completely fucked our economy and that we're on a heavy downward spiral. Shut the hell up about government spending, as that's a fucking symptom of it, not the actual problem. The actual problem is the people making money have NO incentive to actually let some of that money out of their hands. As a result they pay people less, they cut corners, and they look for ways to save (e.g., sending jobs to China.) Since they have UNLIMITED income they will make as much as humanly possible. But since we're talking proportionate, as our economy as a whole isn't much growing, for them to make more money by simple fucking math others of us need to make less of it. And since it's easier to make a lot of money when you have a lot of money the result is that changing classes is difficult.

I didn't go to school for about a billion years and take about $200k in loans to sit around and have people go "oh, well, he works for that money so he deserves it. It was difficult to send those jobs to Thailand, so he deserves that $50MM in compensation." Fuck that. Our economy is falling apart due to it.

RollinThundr wrote on Jun 6, 2012, 09:11:I mentioned fixing tax loopholes so that big business doesn't get quite as many breaks to keep jobs in the US. But in the same token we cannot continue to spend like we are, it's not substaniable, period.

What does this even mean?You want to eliminate tax loopholes so that big corporations don't have an incentive to keep jobs in the US?

What?!

And he said NOTHING about the government creating jobs. Where did your response to him even come from?! He said that Trickle Down Economics has proven false and rewarding the rich has only resulted in the rich becoming a much more powerful and much smaller group while the poor becomes a much less powerful much larger group and the "middle class" has become a much less powerful much smaller group.

You responded to NONE of this.

Jesus. Jesus Jesus Jesus. As he said, the rich are paying the lowest taxes in 100 years (from the end of WW2 to the end of the 70s, likely our strongest years, the top tax bracket varied from 70%-90%!) Since it's been cut we've gone from the top 1% having 20% of the wealth to having 40% of the wealth.

How the fuck do you think this is "substainable" [sic]? Hell, I'll probably be in that 1% before this decade is over and I still see that a) my income is growing much slower as a result of top wealth-catering decisions and 2) our economy cannot grow when the income of only so few actually grows.

RollinThundr wrote on Jun 6, 2012, 00:29:Problem with that is Beamer, alot of the "social responsibility" as you call it, is what created the whole entitlement garbage in the first place.

It's to the point where kids never learn a damn thing because they're coddled to the point of thinking the real world is sunshine and roses. Every kid gets a trophy for showing up, schools are so focused on making sure little billy doesn't get bullied that actual important things like reading and writing and math are put on the back burner. Hell words like retard are pretty much swear words at this point.

The whole Political Correctness batshittery has turned this country into a bunch of entitled spoiled brats who wouldn't know a day of hard work if it ran up and kicked them in the face. Good job liberals!

That's really your problem right there in a nutshell. Not the big bad evil rich people, and small business owners who you know.. create jobs. But hey, lets go after the rich people, and when they ship all the jobs to China and move out of the US when they're taxed to death we'll have even less jobs to cry about.

Why not do the logical thing instead, eliminate all the tax loopholes for corporations, and cut out all the ridiculous spending we do?

Oh man, you couldn't be more wrong.

1) "Entitlement" is a red herring. NO ONE WANTS TO LIVE ON WELFARE! These are people who have either failed or the system has failed. What the fuck do you want, to let them starve? Most of them have no skills and no job prospects. You think they're happy like this! Note that that isn't a question, people like you honestly think there's some kind of welfare queen sitting around super happy that she's a slug with no abilities that contributes nothing. Jesus, that's insanity!

2) You misunderstand taxation. Why are jobs going to China? To avoid taxes in many cases, true. In more cases it's to get a giant bonus. How do you avoid this? Tax the fuck out of personal income above a certain threshold. Suddenly there's less money going into the pockets of the super rich and, since it's still being earned, it needs to go somewhere. Where would it go? Growth. Would it go to China? More likely not, as the savings of sending to China are no longer all that necessary.

3) Wait, you think taxation on people is bad but companies is good? Again, Jesus, man! Jobs go to China to avoid CORPORATE taxes, not personal taxes. Don't "eliminate tax loopholes for corporations," just eliminate taxes on corporations. Get that money from individuals, who will NOT move themselves to China, rather than companies, who will move where they do business in China.

4) "Small business owner" is another red herring. Most small business owners are middle class. Most are being pushed out of business by large businesses with larger scale and global work forces managing to cut prices.

It's like you're seeing everything but looking at it backwards. It's kind of weird. I'm assuming that, since you post here, you make less than $700k/year. You realize your proportionate spending power diminishes each year while your proportionate debt grows, right? You're literally being pushed into having zero spending ability.

Thanks to the Citizen's United decision there probably won't be any corporate loop holes being closed any time soon. The reason Fortune 500 companies have trillions of dollars in European subsidiaries is because they don't want to pay even with the loop holes that exist.

Am I okay with a $15T debt? Of course not. However, I would say if you haven't been complaining about the debt for, oh I don't know, say at least 40 years then you are late to the party.

RollinThundr wrote on Jun 6, 2012, 00:29:That's really your problem right there in a nutshell. Not the big bad evil rich people, and small business owners who you know.. create jobs. But hey, lets go after the rich people, and when they ship all the jobs to China and move out of the US when they're taxed to death we'll have even less jobs to cry about.

When they ship all the jobs to China? You're acting like that hasn't already been happening for decades. Taxed to death? They're already paying some of the lowest taxes in history and apparently that's not good enough. We've tried the "do as the rich desire" path and it's resulted in them becoming more profitable than ever before while the middle class suffers and public services are cut across the board. When is it going to trickle down? When are the job creators going to create jobs? They're content taking their tax breaks and outsourcing jobs.

Government doesn't create jobs. Just saying. Why are you alright with a 15 trillion dollar debt? Why do liberals think that the government can just spend it's way out of any issue, and why do they refuse to even talk about spending at all like it's the plague?

I mentioned fixing tax loopholes so that big business doesn't get quite as many breaks to keep jobs in the US. But in the same token we cannot continue to spend like we are, it's not substaniable, period.

RollinThundr wrote on Jun 6, 2012, 00:29:That's really your problem right there in a nutshell. Not the big bad evil rich people, and small business owners who you know.. create jobs. But hey, lets go after the rich people, and when they ship all the jobs to China and move out of the US when they're taxed to death we'll have even less jobs to cry about.

When they ship all the jobs to China? You're acting like that hasn't already been happening for decades. Taxed to death? They're already paying some of the lowest taxes in history and apparently that's not good enough. We've tried the "do as the rich desire" path and it's resulted in them becoming more profitable than ever before while the middle class suffers and public services are cut across the board. When is it going to trickle down? When are the job creators going to create jobs? They're content taking their tax breaks and outsourcing jobs.

Beamer wrote on Jun 5, 2012, 09:44:The idea that "anyone can rise above" is such "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" garbage. I believed it, too, until I moved to the slums of Newark, NJ. Trust me, no one there can do any such thing. Go find yourself an inner city teacher to talk to and ask what kind of opportunities their kids have. Most of them live in slums with used needles in the hallways, used condoms in the stairwells and gunshots in the walls. They come home to parents passed out on the couch from drugs. Do you actually think an elementary school kid coming home to this is thinking "gee, I better learn my multiplication tables!" No, they're not, and no one is guiding them. By the time they realize, if they ever realize, it's far too late. No school will take them, odds are their family has already pushed them to drop out to supplement the income...

Yes, poor life choices, but these choices are often made for them before they have an idea they're being made. It's a ridiculously privileged thing to say "they made poor life choices, but anyone can change that." No, some people can't. Your comment is like that 50 year old white dude that wrote the Forbes article "if I was a poor black teenager I'd spend every free hour in the library so that I could get an education." Great. If I was a parrot I'd learn to speak Arrested Development quotes so people would feed me more often.

I lived in a shitty low income neighborhood while down in Va Beach, working retail for 3 years. Most of the people there were too busy gambling on the lottery, or getting into fist/gun fights in the little strip mall across from where my complex was to give a shit about having a better life.

And any single time the cops would show up to break something up, all you heard was "this is racial profiling" etc.

Again yes it sucks to be born into low income, but a person always has a personal choice if they want to stay in that sort of life or not.

This whole libral mantra that the government needs to take care of people using other people's money is the biggest sham known to man.

I grew up on a farm, dirt poor. I own my own store now. Your belief that poor people cannot better themselves? Wrong. My wife was an inner city teacher. Teachers tell kids all the time that they need to better themselves. Some kids listen and better themselves. My wife has kids that were living in tenements who ended up going to Ivy league schools on scholarships. And she has kids who are right where their parents were. Whose fault is that? The kids. You can make all the excuses you like, but at the end of the day everyone is responsible for themselves.

And don't BS me about people not wanting to be on welfare. I grew up around people who were overjoyed to be allowed to sit and do nothing day after day because the government was paying for their existence. And I see those same people in my store every week. If you believe all this bleeding heart BS about poor people it's because you've never actually met one in your life.

If you lived on a farm you weren't the same kind of poor.Sorry.

Speaking of "haven't actually met one," go drive to Paterson, NJ and spend a day in the criminal courthouse. Meet the defendants. Meet their toddlers. Tell me if you think those toddlers have a chance.

I agree there's no personal responsibility, but some people never had a chance to be responsible - they were ruined before that.And why are we looking at the lack of personal responsibility and choosing to solve it with a lack of social responsibility?

Regardless, whatever, do away with welfare, I don't particularly care, I'm more interested in doing away with the extremely rich being the only people in this country with any wealth at all.

Problem with that is Beamer, alot of the "social responsibility" as you call it, is what created the whole entitlement garbage in the first place.

It's to the point where kids never learn a damn thing because they're coddled to the point of thinking the real world is sunshine and roses. Every kid gets a trophy for showing up, schools are so focused on making sure little billy doesn't get bullied that actual important things like reading and writing and math are put on the back burner. Hell words like retard are pretty much swear words at this point.

The whole Political Correctness batshittery has turned this country into a bunch of entitled spoiled brats who wouldn't know a day of hard work if it ran up and kicked them in the face. Good job liberals!

That's really your problem right there in a nutshell. Not the big bad evil rich people, and small business owners who you know.. create jobs. But hey, lets go after the rich people, and when they ship all the jobs to China and move out of the US when they're taxed to death we'll have even less jobs to cry about.

Why not do the logical thing instead, eliminate all the tax loopholes for corporations, and cut out all the ridiculous spending we do?

Beamer wrote on Jun 5, 2012, 09:44:The idea that "anyone can rise above" is such "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" garbage. I believed it, too, until I moved to the slums of Newark, NJ. Trust me, no one there can do any such thing. Go find yourself an inner city teacher to talk to and ask what kind of opportunities their kids have. Most of them live in slums with used needles in the hallways, used condoms in the stairwells and gunshots in the walls. They come home to parents passed out on the couch from drugs. Do you actually think an elementary school kid coming home to this is thinking "gee, I better learn my multiplication tables!" No, they're not, and no one is guiding them. By the time they realize, if they ever realize, it's far too late. No school will take them, odds are their family has already pushed them to drop out to supplement the income...

Yes, poor life choices, but these choices are often made for them before they have an idea they're being made. It's a ridiculously privileged thing to say "they made poor life choices, but anyone can change that." No, some people can't. Your comment is like that 50 year old white dude that wrote the Forbes article "if I was a poor black teenager I'd spend every free hour in the library so that I could get an education." Great. If I was a parrot I'd learn to speak Arrested Development quotes so people would feed me more often.

I lived in a shitty low income neighborhood while down in Va Beach, working retail for 3 years. Most of the people there were too busy gambling on the lottery, or getting into fist/gun fights in the little strip mall across from where my complex was to give a shit about having a better life.

And any single time the cops would show up to break something up, all you heard was "this is racial profiling" etc.

Again yes it sucks to be born into low income, but a person always has a personal choice if they want to stay in that sort of life or not.

This whole libral mantra that the government needs to take care of people using other people's money is the biggest sham known to man.

I grew up on a farm, dirt poor. I own my own store now. Your belief that poor people cannot better themselves? Wrong. My wife was an inner city teacher. Teachers tell kids all the time that they need to better themselves. Some kids listen and better themselves. My wife has kids that were living in tenements who ended up going to Ivy league schools on scholarships. And she has kids who are right where their parents were. Whose fault is that? The kids. You can make all the excuses you like, but at the end of the day everyone is responsible for themselves.

And don't BS me about people not wanting to be on welfare. I grew up around people who were overjoyed to be allowed to sit and do nothing day after day because the government was paying for their existence. And I see those same people in my store every week. If you believe all this bleeding heart BS about poor people it's because you've never actually met one in your life.

If you lived on a farm you weren't the same kind of poor.Sorry.

Speaking of "haven't actually met one," go drive to Paterson, NJ and spend a day in the criminal courthouse. Meet the defendants. Meet their toddlers. Tell me if you think those toddlers have a chance.

I agree there's no personal responsibility, but some people never had a chance to be responsible - they were ruined before that.And why are we looking at the lack of personal responsibility and choosing to solve it with a lack of social responsibility?

Regardless, whatever, do away with welfare, I don't particularly care, I'm more interested in doing away with the extremely rich being the only people in this country with any wealth at all.

Beamer wrote on Jun 5, 2012, 09:44:The idea that "anyone can rise above" is such "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" garbage. I believed it, too, until I moved to the slums of Newark, NJ. Trust me, no one there can do any such thing. Go find yourself an inner city teacher to talk to and ask what kind of opportunities their kids have. Most of them live in slums with used needles in the hallways, used condoms in the stairwells and gunshots in the walls. They come home to parents passed out on the couch from drugs. Do you actually think an elementary school kid coming home to this is thinking "gee, I better learn my multiplication tables!" No, they're not, and no one is guiding them. By the time they realize, if they ever realize, it's far too late. No school will take them, odds are their family has already pushed them to drop out to supplement the income...

Yes, poor life choices, but these choices are often made for them before they have an idea they're being made. It's a ridiculously privileged thing to say "they made poor life choices, but anyone can change that." No, some people can't. Your comment is like that 50 year old white dude that wrote the Forbes article "if I was a poor black teenager I'd spend every free hour in the library so that I could get an education." Great. If I was a parrot I'd learn to speak Arrested Development quotes so people would feed me more often.

I lived in a shitty low income neighborhood while down in Va Beach, working retail for 3 years. Most of the people there were too busy gambling on the lottery, or getting into fist/gun fights in the little strip mall across from where my complex was to give a shit about having a better life.

And any single time the cops would show up to break something up, all you heard was "this is racial profiling" etc.

Again yes it sucks to be born into low income, but a person always has a personal choice if they want to stay in that sort of life or not.

This whole libral mantra that the government needs to take care of people using other people's money is the biggest sham known to man.

I grew up on a farm, dirt poor. I own my own store now. Your belief that poor people cannot better themselves? Wrong. My wife was an inner city teacher. Teachers tell kids all the time that they need to better themselves. Some kids listen and better themselves. My wife has kids that were living in tenements who ended up going to Ivy league schools on scholarships. And she has kids who are right where their parents were. Whose fault is that? The kids. You can make all the excuses you like, but at the end of the day everyone is responsible for themselves.

And don't BS me about people not wanting to be on welfare. I grew up around people who were overjoyed to be allowed to sit and do nothing day after day because the government was paying for their existence. And I see those same people in my store every week. If you believe all this bleeding heart BS about poor people it's because you've never actually met one in your life.

Beamer wrote on Jun 5, 2012, 09:44:The idea that "anyone can rise above" is such "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" garbage. I believed it, too, until I moved to the slums of Newark, NJ. Trust me, no one there can do any such thing. Go find yourself an inner city teacher to talk to and ask what kind of opportunities their kids have. Most of them live in slums with used needles in the hallways, used condoms in the stairwells and gunshots in the walls. They come home to parents passed out on the couch from drugs. Do you actually think an elementary school kid coming home to this is thinking "gee, I better learn my multiplication tables!" No, they're not, and no one is guiding them. By the time they realize, if they ever realize, it's far too late. No school will take them, odds are their family has already pushed them to drop out to supplement the income...

Yes, poor life choices, but these choices are often made for them before they have an idea they're being made. It's a ridiculously privileged thing to say "they made poor life choices, but anyone can change that." No, some people can't. Your comment is like that 50 year old white dude that wrote the Forbes article "if I was a poor black teenager I'd spend every free hour in the library so that I could get an education." Great. If I was a parrot I'd learn to speak Arrested Development quotes so people would feed me more often.

I lived in a shitty low income neighborhood while down in Va Beach, working retail for 3 years. Most of the people there were too busy gambling on the lottery, or getting into fist/gun fights in the little strip mall across from where my complex was to give a shit about having a better life.

And any single time the cops would show up to break something up, all you heard was "this is racial profiling" etc.

Again yes it sucks to be born into low income, but a person always has a personal choice if they want to stay in that sort of life or not.

This whole libral mantra that the government needs to take care of people using other people's money is the biggest sham known to man.

It's the definition of selfish, and considering our country is being destroyed by selfishiness, it's absolutely the worst.

What's weird is how many selfish people want to give everything they have to those born wealthier than themselves, though... Poor people shouldn't have a dime of their money, but the rich should be able to take huge chunks of their income, if only because they already have a lot of it...

Sure, it's being destroyed by selfishness. Selfish corporations who take government handouts and influence the day to day operations of our government on a ridiculous level. And selfish people who think I should give what I earn to them because they are somehow more in need of it than I am.

BTW, Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin. They give 2 shits about people. They are in it for money and power. They just have different slogans. They're like Pepsi and Coke. Catchy jingle, sugary taste. At the end of the day they leave you fat with empty calories and holding a huge dentist bill for someone else.

Well, they care about people - themselves. They do what it takes to get reelected. Corporations and rich people play a larger role.And yes, some people are more in need of your money than you are. You shouldn't think of it that way, though - think of it as you paying a little to help the whole. A healthier whole will lead you to be better off than a weaker whole, and it's worthwhile to kick a little bit back in order to reach that goal. A healthy economy has less disparity between the richest, the poorest and the median. The more that gets stretched out the weaker the economy, and eventually there's a snap.We've been moving in such a weird direction based upon Republican tax policy. The distance between the poorest and the median isn't moving much, but the distance between the wealthiest and the median has moved exponentially. That's a sign of a weak middle class and spending power being extremely disproportionate.

Too much spending power in the hands of too few people and you get a snap. Remember, it isn't that the wealthiest are making more money, it's that they're making more share, meaning more money at the expense of everyone else. Still baffles me that anyone supports this. Eventually things collapse due to it.

Honestly, I've said it before, I don't have issue with raising taxes, but there comes a point where the people that actively rely on welfare, and refuse to better themselves or take any responsibility for their lives and instead want to just live off the government tit for the rest of their lives, popping out babies every couple years for a bigger check, should be held accountable. Along with the people who can work but are lazy and game the broken welfare system we have.

This whole entitlement from the womb mentality the US and really the world has these days is ridiculous. There's no longer such a thing as personal responsibility or work ethic, just gimme gimme gimme, I deserve it.

The bigger issue however is spending. The pie isn't finite, if you work hard and put the effort in anyone can be successful, some people due to their upbringing will obviously have a harder time at doing so, but success is attainable by anyone willing to put the time and effort in to make a life for themselves.

I'd be far more worried with how much we keep spending at the government level, than anything else, when you have a president spend 5 trillion dollars in 3 and a half years, and sure some of that is inherited war spending, and spending in general from the previous administration, and have zero to show for it along the lines of jobs created, or the economy recovering because once again rather than let the free market correct itself, the government had to step in and bail out companies with tax payer money, and as usual when the government touches anything, they fuck it up. You know there's a spending problem.

Government has gotten too big, too bloated, and so far beyond We The People at this point, if we don't start seriously making some changes soon, we won't have any chance of sustainability.

Fun fact: no one wants to be on welfare. No one. Not a single person. No one wakes up in the morning and says "thank god I'm on welfare! Now I can continue to remain in this tiny shithole watching daytime TV and cash-for-gold ads all day!"

Who ends up welfare? People that are born in poverty, whose parents were born into poverty. People who were never told that being educated was important, and didn't realize it until it was far too late to do something. People who have no opportunities. People who, in decades past, may have been able to open a corner store or a restaurant to make something of themselves and jump classes but instead would be competing with a McDonald's and White Castle and Kroger and therefore have no small business opportunities.

Welfare doesn't fix any of that, but it's completely wrong to characterize them as being on welfare due to entitlement.

You forgot people who make bad life choices, teenagers getting preggiers etc. You're doing it here in this post. Oh woe is them, life dealt them a bad hand, they have no choice but to be on welfare. That's bullshit Beamer. Anyone can rise above what life has handed them and put the effort in to get ahead.

The idea that "anyone can rise above" is such "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" garbage. I believed it, too, until I moved to the slums of Newark, NJ. Trust me, no one there can do any such thing. Go find yourself an inner city teacher to talk to and ask what kind of opportunities their kids have. Most of them live in slums with used needles in the hallways, used condoms in the stairwells and gunshots in the walls. They come home to parents passed out on the couch from drugs. Do you actually think an elementary school kid coming home to this is thinking "gee, I better learn my multiplication tables!" No, they're not, and no one is guiding them. By the time they realize, if they ever realize, it's far too late. No school will take them, odds are their family has already pushed them to drop out to supplement the income...

Yes, poor life choices, but these choices are often made for them before they have an idea they're being made. It's a ridiculously privileged thing to say "they made poor life choices, but anyone can change that." No, some people can't. Your comment is like that 50 year old white dude that wrote the Forbes article "if I was a poor black teenager I'd spend every free hour in the library so that I could get an education." Great. If I was a parrot I'd learn to speak Arrested Development quotes so people would feed me more often.

It's the definition of selfish, and considering our country is being destroyed by selfishiness, it's absolutely the worst.

What's weird is how many selfish people want to give everything they have to those born wealthier than themselves, though... Poor people shouldn't have a dime of their money, but the rich should be able to take huge chunks of their income, if only because they already have a lot of it...

Sure, it's being destroyed by selfishness. Selfish corporations who take government handouts and influence the day to day operations of our government on a ridiculous level. And selfish people who think I should give what I earn to them because they are somehow more in need of it than I am.

BTW, Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin. They give 2 shits about people. They are in it for money and power. They just have different slogans. They're like Pepsi and Coke. Catchy jingle, sugary taste. At the end of the day they leave you fat with empty calories and holding a huge dentist bill for someone else.

Well, they care about people - themselves. They do what it takes to get reelected. Corporations and rich people play a larger role.And yes, some people are more in need of your money than you are. You shouldn't think of it that way, though - think of it as you paying a little to help the whole. A healthier whole will lead you to be better off than a weaker whole, and it's worthwhile to kick a little bit back in order to reach that goal. A healthy economy has less disparity between the richest, the poorest and the median. The more that gets stretched out the weaker the economy, and eventually there's a snap.We've been moving in such a weird direction based upon Republican tax policy. The distance between the poorest and the median isn't moving much, but the distance between the wealthiest and the median has moved exponentially. That's a sign of a weak middle class and spending power being extremely disproportionate.

Too much spending power in the hands of too few people and you get a snap. Remember, it isn't that the wealthiest are making more money, it's that they're making more share, meaning more money at the expense of everyone else. Still baffles me that anyone supports this. Eventually things collapse due to it.

Honestly, I've said it before, I don't have issue with raising taxes, but there comes a point where the people that actively rely on welfare, and refuse to better themselves or take any responsibility for their lives and instead want to just live off the government tit for the rest of their lives, popping out babies every couple years for a bigger check, should be held accountable. Along with the people who can work but are lazy and game the broken welfare system we have.

This whole entitlement from the womb mentality the US and really the world has these days is ridiculous. There's no longer such a thing as personal responsibility or work ethic, just gimme gimme gimme, I deserve it.

The bigger issue however is spending. The pie isn't finite, if you work hard and put the effort in anyone can be successful, some people due to their upbringing will obviously have a harder time at doing so, but success is attainable by anyone willing to put the time and effort in to make a life for themselves.

I'd be far more worried with how much we keep spending at the government level, than anything else, when you have a president spend 5 trillion dollars in 3 and a half years, and sure some of that is inherited war spending, and spending in general from the previous administration, and have zero to show for it along the lines of jobs created, or the economy recovering because once again rather than let the free market correct itself, the government had to step in and bail out companies with tax payer money, and as usual when the government touches anything, they fuck it up. You know there's a spending problem.

Government has gotten too big, too bloated, and so far beyond We The People at this point, if we don't start seriously making some changes soon, we won't have any chance of sustainability.

Fun fact: no one wants to be on welfare. No one. Not a single person. No one wakes up in the morning and says "thank god I'm on welfare! Now I can continue to remain in this tiny shithole watching daytime TV and cash-for-gold ads all day!"

Who ends up welfare? People that are born in poverty, whose parents were born into poverty. People who were never told that being educated was important, and didn't realize it until it was far too late to do something. People who have no opportunities. People who, in decades past, may have been able to open a corner store or a restaurant to make something of themselves and jump classes but instead would be competing with a McDonald's and White Castle and Kroger and therefore have no small business opportunities.

Welfare doesn't fix any of that, but it's completely wrong to characterize them as being on welfare due to entitlement.

You forgot people who make bad life choices, teenagers getting preggiers etc. You're doing it here in this post. Oh woe is them, life dealt them a bad hand, they have no choice but to be on welfare. That's bullshit Beamer. Anyone can rise above what life has handed them and put the effort in to get ahead.

It's the definition of selfish, and considering our country is being destroyed by selfishiness, it's absolutely the worst.

What's weird is how many selfish people want to give everything they have to those born wealthier than themselves, though... Poor people shouldn't have a dime of their money, but the rich should be able to take huge chunks of their income, if only because they already have a lot of it...

Sure, it's being destroyed by selfishness. Selfish corporations who take government handouts and influence the day to day operations of our government on a ridiculous level. And selfish people who think I should give what I earn to them because they are somehow more in need of it than I am.

BTW, Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin. They give 2 shits about people. They are in it for money and power. They just have different slogans. They're like Pepsi and Coke. Catchy jingle, sugary taste. At the end of the day they leave you fat with empty calories and holding a huge dentist bill for someone else.

Well, they care about people - themselves. They do what it takes to get reelected. Corporations and rich people play a larger role.And yes, some people are more in need of your money than you are. You shouldn't think of it that way, though - think of it as you paying a little to help the whole. A healthier whole will lead you to be better off than a weaker whole, and it's worthwhile to kick a little bit back in order to reach that goal. A healthy economy has less disparity between the richest, the poorest and the median. The more that gets stretched out the weaker the economy, and eventually there's a snap.We've been moving in such a weird direction based upon Republican tax policy. The distance between the poorest and the median isn't moving much, but the distance between the wealthiest and the median has moved exponentially. That's a sign of a weak middle class and spending power being extremely disproportionate.

Too much spending power in the hands of too few people and you get a snap. Remember, it isn't that the wealthiest are making more money, it's that they're making more share, meaning more money at the expense of everyone else. Still baffles me that anyone supports this. Eventually things collapse due to it.

Honestly, I've said it before, I don't have issue with raising taxes, but there comes a point where the people that actively rely on welfare, and refuse to better themselves or take any responsibility for their lives and instead want to just live off the government tit for the rest of their lives, popping out babies every couple years for a bigger check, should be held accountable. Along with the people who can work but are lazy and game the broken welfare system we have.

This whole entitlement from the womb mentality the US and really the world has these days is ridiculous. There's no longer such a thing as personal responsibility or work ethic, just gimme gimme gimme, I deserve it.

The bigger issue however is spending. The pie isn't finite, if you work hard and put the effort in anyone can be successful, some people due to their upbringing will obviously have a harder time at doing so, but success is attainable by anyone willing to put the time and effort in to make a life for themselves.

I'd be far more worried with how much we keep spending at the government level, than anything else, when you have a president spend 5 trillion dollars in 3 and a half years, and sure some of that is inherited war spending, and spending in general from the previous administration, and have zero to show for it along the lines of jobs created, or the economy recovering because once again rather than let the free market correct itself, the government had to step in and bail out companies with tax payer money, and as usual when the government touches anything, they fuck it up. You know there's a spending problem.

Government has gotten too big, too bloated, and so far beyond We The People at this point, if we don't start seriously making some changes soon, we won't have any chance of sustainability.

Fun fact: no one wants to be on welfare. No one. Not a single person. No one wakes up in the morning and says "thank god I'm on welfare! Now I can continue to remain in this tiny shithole watching daytime TV and cash-for-gold ads all day!"

Who ends up welfare? People that are born in poverty, whose parents were born into poverty. People who were never told that being educated was important, and didn't realize it until it was far too late to do something. People who have no opportunities. People who, in decades past, may have been able to open a corner store or a restaurant to make something of themselves and jump classes but instead would be competing with a McDonald's and White Castle and Kroger and therefore have no small business opportunities.

Welfare doesn't fix any of that, but it's completely wrong to characterize them as being on welfare due to entitlement.

Prez wrote on Jun 4, 2012, 20:05:Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ - what the fuck happened to this thread?? Every other thread these days seems to break out in this nonsense. Take that political bullshit somewhere else for fuck's sake.

I was going to comment on what a decent thing Epic is doing, but who wants to discuss the topic, right?

Are you not following the story Prez? You're surprised that a 38 Studios story involves politics?

Rhode Island legislature made a bad choice to subsidize a questionable start-up company with taxpayer money under a program aimed at bringing businesses and jobs to the state. The company failed, so another company is hiring some of those who lost their jobs in an effort to keep a decent studio from being brought down with it. I'm not seeing the connection to the current discussion. Looks like a hijack to me, but whatever.

You failed to read the whole thread, or you failed to comprehend. One of the two is the reason why you don't get the political connection.